EMERGENCY services yesterday pleaded with holidaymakers to take care with inflatables after a "day of madness" saw more than 38 people - many of them youngsters - rescued on the North Wales coast.

Children and adults were blown out to sea on sunbeds and toy dinghies as soaring temperatures attracted thousands to the coast.

A teenager who had attempted to swim back to shore was pulled unconscious from the sea while an eight-year-old boy was winched aboard a RAF helicopter after drifting 400 yards from shore.

Three teenagers were plucked from their dinghy, with one airlifted to hospital for treatment.

Throughout the day, coastguards and emergency services were indundated with calls for help.

Incidents were reported from as far afield as Barmouth and Criccieth in the south up to Rhyl and Abergele, with two rescues within a couple of hours at Penmaenmawr.

"It has been absolutely crazy," said a Holyhead coastguard spokesman.

"It is sheer madness. We can't understand how anybody would allow a child to go out in an inflatable without a safety line attached to it."

The Towyn incident off Golden Sands Holiday Camp, almost cost two teenagers, a girl 14, and boy 15, their lives.

Drifting helplessly out to sea in a two-metre inflatable they were caught by an offshore wind and an incoming tide.

Paul Frost at Rhyl Lifeboat Station said: "They were up to 500 metres out when they realised the wind was stronger than they thought, and, using small paddles, were making no headway back to shore.

"They decided to leave the dinghy and swim for it.

"Luckily the alarm was raised by their parents ashore, and we launched our inshore lifeboat which had just returned from an earlier 'shout' to another two people in a dinghy.

"The boat launched within three minutes, and was on scene within eight minutes, by which time the boy had been in the water for about 20 minutes.

"When the crew arrived, he had drifted into unconsciousness and was going under.

"One of the crew jumped over-board and managed to bring the boy, who was in a poor state, to the boat and he was given oxygen.

"The girl, who was hypothermic, was also helped into the boat."

Both were taken by ambulance to Ysbyty Glan Clwyd.

At Penmaenmawr, a 999 call from the beach shortly after 10am, launched one of the first rescues.

On holiday with his parents, an eight-year-old boy, was picked up by the crew of the Beaumaris Atlantic class inshore lifeboat, almost a quarter of a mile off the beach at Penmaenmawr.

The three-man crew, with station mechanic Simon Bunting at the helm, had dashed five miles to his rescue, with a member of the public on a mobile phone guiding them to him via coastguards.

"The boy was very lucky," said Mr Bunting.

"Fortunately, although he was being swept further out to sea, driven by an offshore breeze and currents, he stuck to the inflatable, waiting for help to arrive. That was the right thing for him to do."

He was winched aboard a Sea King rescue helicopter from RAF Valley and flown to Bangor's Ysbyty Gwynedd, where he was joined later by him parents.

The same Beaumaris lifeboat crew were heading back towards Penmaenmawr soon afterwards to rescue a father and his seven-year-old son who were in trouble 150 yards from shore.

Last night the Maritime And Coastguard Agency made a plea for common sense.

Agency spokeswoman Julia Gosling said: "We want people to have fun and make the most of the weather but our Seasmart campaign stresses any inflatable should be attached to a rope held by somebody on shore.

"Conditions can be very deceiving. "The sea may look dead calm but in an offshore breeze these things can travel across the surface of the water very quickly.

"People can soon get into difficulty, sometimes tragically."

Barmouth inshore lifeboats dealt with at least 15 incidents, with two 13-year-old boys from Newtown plucked from their dinghy.

RNLI spokeswoman Wendy Pons-ford said that one of them, Danny Jones, had to be airlifted by an RAF helicopter from Valley as he was asthmatic and suffering from hypothermia. She named his friend as being Grant Darling.

Six men had to be rescued by Criccieth lifeboat from after their speed-boat was swamped by water and sunk off Harlech yesterday.